Friday, January 13, 2012

Rulon?

Today I shipped out a hot-end, for testing, that had a liner made out of Rulon instead of PTFE. Rulon is supposed to be very similar to PTFE. However, it is rated for a temperature up to 288 degrees Celsius.

I figured I would have it tested as some users have reported PTFE degradation, at the hot-end, after months of heavy use. While the PTFE liners are fairly easy to replace, I figured that it wouldn't hurt to test other materials.

Even if this material is initially successful, many questions will still remain.

3 comments:

Hi Brian, is the Rulon available in Tubes like PTFE or did you need to turn it down from a block? - what will using Rulon do to the cost?The extra temperature would really help increase the speed of Polycarbonate printing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rulon_(plastic)

Your J-Head's are my hot-ends of choice, I have 5 running very well at the moment, they work great for me both fast and slow printing, minimal ooze - many thanks for the ongoing design evolution and refinements.

Unfortunately, I haven't seen Rulon in tubes and it needed to be turned down, drilled out, and have the ends finished.

The maximum temperature, of the hot-end, will still be 248 degrees C as that is the limit of the PEEK.

If Rulon is proven to work, and lasts longer than PTFE, it could be used as an option in order to avoid changing out the liner. Testing Rulon will also determine if it could be used for a liner in higher-temperature hot-end designs.

I would estimate that using Rulon would increase the cost by around $15.00....primarily due to all of the additional machining required.